I’ve been discussing the Christian church at an early stage in its development, around 200 AD. This is definitely the “early church,” long before the Council of Nicea, and the kind of precedents we find there should presumably be relevant to later generations of Christians, including Protestants. That’s important because early Fathers from this time, such as Tertullian, show how commonly the church then talked not only about a distinct class of clergy, but even referred to them as priests.... Read more

I have been working on the early church, mainly the era of Tertullian, around 200 AD. What you find in that era has many implications for later debates about the church, and especially at a time when we are talking so much about commemorating the Reformation. For Christians, the question of what the church actually did and thought in that very early era has always been a matter of significance. To varying degrees, Christians of all shades and traditions have... Read more